Tools

Ah, it was the year 140 A.D., a heady time when Romans spoke with American accents and savage Britons garbled a mix of English, Gaelic and, I dunno, Esperanto? And, the only way to tell friend from foe was whether they wore powder blue war paint (bad) or washed it off and looked like Jamie Elliott (good). Recovering from battle injures, a young Roman centurion (Channing Tatum, always better seen than heard) hops Hadrian's Wall with his body slave, Esca (Bell), and braves the wilds of Caledonia to recover his lost father's eagle standard and thereby restore his family's honor. Never mind the woeful dialogue, lazily edited battle scenes and plot holes the size of Loch Ness. No, the topper is the symbolism of an expansionist empire—with soldiers played by American actors—meeting its match on the distant land of an indigenous people. I couldn't decide whether I was seeing Iraq or Pandora, but either way, it felt so last decade.
ByNeil Morris